The couple that sticks together in front of the cast, students and crew, stays together. That's the philosophy that Jan and Andy Hunsaker follow in their marriage, one that survives two creative people in dramatic careers.

“Community theater raised us both, so we feel passionate about it. It's important.”

Jan Shelton Hunsaker

SALT LAKE CITY — Jan Shelton Hunsaker and her husband, Andy, have a few rules about what they do and do not do in front of their cast members and students as they move about directing, teaching and acting in productions all around Utah.

They never roll their eyes, chuckle derisively at one another's suggestions or upstage one another — even when they don't agree with whatever direction has been given.

"We stick together. It's like parenting. We never bump in front of the kids and we never say negative things in front of them. That's a hard and fast rule," explains Jan Hunsaker

They also take turns being the "lead" and or/the supporting member of the family but they stop short of keeping score.

"We don't worry about whose turn it is. We don't keep track; you can't," said Andy Hunsaker. "We're very positive about who each other is."

They also have a motto on the wall at home: "Leave your ego at the door!"

For the Hunsakers, it works to have rules as they are both involved in drama in their work and their play and they know the demands on their time and emotions will always be great.

Jan Shelton Hunsaker has been directing and teaching drama for 22 years, starting out in her hometown of Lehi, taking her award-winning casts overseas to the prestigious Fringe Festival and working all around Utah County in all aspects of theater.

She taught at Mountain Ridge Junior High School while her future husband taught at American Fork Junior High.

She's currently the artistic director of the production of "Legally Blonde, The Musical" at the acting school where she and Andy have landed since their departure from Tuacahn.

Andy Hunsaker is a comedic actor who has his equity status and teaches at Pioneer High School as well as the Salt Lake School of the Performing Arts. (He's currently Edna by invitation and special permission at Olympus High School in "Hairspray" and he'll be doing "Tuna Christmas" for SLSPA in December, directed by Jan.)

He is the state Thespian Director for the Educational Theatre Association for all of Utah.

In 2011, Jan Hunsaker won the National Theatre Educators Hall of Fame Award (Lifetime Achievement) with five other teachers in the nation.

Both teach drama at the Salt Lake School for the Performing Arts charter school.

Sheldon Worthington, principal of the SLSPA, calls the Hunsakers the "dynamic duo, the superheroes of the high school theater world.

Sharon Haddock is a former full-time writer and editor for The Deseret News. She currently does freelance writing from her home in American Fork where she lives with her fellow journalist husband Marc Haddock. They have 12 more ..